Tūī
/ˈtuːiː/noun
A distinctive New Zealand honeyeater known for its white throat tuft and complex, sometimes imitative song.
Did you know?Tūī can produce two voices at once because they possess vocal structures that allow remarkably complex sound production, including mimicry.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Polynesian
Proto-Polynesian
*tui
“Reconstructed name for a bird, ancestral to the Māori form”
Early Polynesian
Polynesian
tui
“A bird name preserved in related Polynesian languages”
18th Century
Māori
tūī
“The native New Zealand honeyeater”
19th Century
English
tui
“An English rendering of the Māori bird name”
Modern English
English
tūī
“The New Zealand honeyeater, commonly retaining the Māori macrons”
Explore more surprising origins